


Idiocy and Intelligence

by Derien



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-03-21
Updated: 2004-03-21
Packaged: 2017-10-15 07:19:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/158405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Derien/pseuds/Derien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written quite some years ago, not so great, and also unfinished with not much chance of me ever getting it done, now, sorry. <br/>Crossover with M*A*S*H* and Red Dwarf.  A strip-poker game leads to<br/>an accidental dimension jump and some rather un-thought-out play of another<br/>sort on Lister and Rimmer's part.  Lister nearly has an air traffic accident,<br/>Kryten gets slightly blown up, Rimmer is forced to look heroic.<br/>Notes: It's all Bree's fault, she comes up with these ideas that scare me!<br/>(but I somehow find them intriguing...)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Picture a dark-skinned delicately muscled man, clad only in tiger-striped  
briefs, staggering (somehow gracefully) across the room from the table where  
three other scantily clad males (or in Kryten's case, male-shaped mechanoid)  
sit. This room is Parrots, a small restaurant aboard Red Dwarf, a starship  
which was built to carry thousands of people and many thousands of tons of ore.  
Three million years ago it was owned by Jupiter Mining. Now this man and his  
very small circle of friends getting drunk around the table (with the marginal  
excuse of playing strip poker) are the only inhabitants of this city in space.  
You might also notice that this man has fangs. That's because Cat is descended  
from the common housecat of old Earth. He doesn't need another name besides  
Cat. Most cats don't, really; they're just going to ignore them anyway. And  
besides, he's the only cat on the ship, since all the others left the ship when  
he was young to seek out their religion's promised land of Fushal.

Cat made it to the food dispenser on the wall without falling over and began to  
peruse the menu, tilting precariously over the little flip-out board and poking  
at it with a finger.

"Just order something and come back!" Lister called out. "Last hand! My luck  
has got to change!" Against all odds they have all been losing, and the other  
three are no more dressed than Cat. David Lister's blue boxers had pictures of  
Wilma Flintstone on them, and stains that would embarrass anyone else. (He didn't  
look much like the god of the cats, Cloister, who saved the life of the Holy  
Mother by sacrificing himself to be frozen in time, but in fact he was, and  
because he had been frozen in time for three million years he was the last of  
his type - a flesh and blood human.) Kryten, the mechanoid, had only a knit  
hat left on. Arnold Rimmer (a hologram of Lister's long-dead bunkmate) was  
doing best, and was elated by his relative success - he still had on a pair  
of black uniform socks as well as his regulation white boxers.

"This machine won't give me the drink I want! Come get me this drink, Monkey!"

Lister made a few good-natured grumbling noises as he navigated across the room,  
but he knew Cat was, after all, a cat - the center of his own universe and always  
assuming he should be the center of everyone else's as well.

"I want something different," said Cat, "I've had all the others."

"All right, all right. Funny name for a drink. 'Holly Hop Engage,'" Lister read.

A beautifully modulated feminine computer voice - not the voice of the ship's  
AI, Holly, although resembling it in timber - responded, "Please give  
authorization code."

"Authorization code? For a drink? Hol, what's my authorization code today?"

"Lister One One Seven Nine Four," Holly responded from the nearest screen, "But  
don't go - "

"Authorization code Lister One One Seven Nine Four," Lister responded to the  
computer without hesitation, his speech for a moment unslurred in one of those  
moments of apparent clarity which so often happen at just the wrong moment when  
you're drunk.

A perfectly modulated voice responded, "Code recognized. Holly Hop Drive  
engaging in four... three... "

"Oh Smeg," Lister stated.

"Well," Holly said, "We're someplace else, now."

"Are we going to finish this poker game or what?" asked the Cat.

"We're in another universe, Holly?"

"Yes, Dave."

"Anything dangerous out there?"

"Nothing on long-range scans."

"Okay." He headed back to the table. "My luck's got to change, this hand."

Somehow, none of them really won; they all ended up completely stripped. Cat  
announced his intention to go get laid in the Better Than Life game, the  
pictures of naked women on the playing cards in combination with the catnip  
martinis having apparently been too much for him. He staggered off.

Rimmer had only to command, "Holly, a clean uniform, please," and he was  
instantly dressed neatly again.

Kryten began gathering the debris of the party - he couldn't leave a room  
untidy.

Lister struggled his cargo pants onto his legs, stood to pull them up and  
staggered a few steps as he did so. He fetched up against the doorframe.

"Are you going to BTL, too?" Rimmer asked, looking scornfully down at Lister  
but maneuvering himself near enough to catch him if he fell off the doorframe.  
Although with his own unsteadiness it looked more like he'd just break Lister's  
fall a little.

"Nah, man. Must have forty models in the game, but they're all the same,  
aren't they?" He began melting around the doorframe, feeling for the wall which  
would get him back to his room, but soon gave up on that and leaned into Rimmer  
instead. Rimmer nearly lost his balance but managed to hold his own, and they  
began the long stagger back to the quarters they'd shared for years.

"You've done them all?"

"O'course. Haven't you? Gotta do something. Showerin' gets dull."

"Oh, yes. Of course. Done every one. Twice."

"It's all 'oooh yes, you're sooooo good' and all, innit? Never a surprise."

"Do you like surprises?"

"Yeah, every now and then I might want a bit of a surprise." Lister tried to  
take another step but found forward motion impeded by Rimmer's arm. He looked  
up into Rimmer's face, where something odd was swimming up through the slack  
drunken expression. Lister's mouth continued on in a trajectory of its own.  
"Y'know, just something different once in a while - hey man, what - ?" He broke  
off as Rimmer pinned him to the wall and kissed him with a ferocious, sloppy  
intensity, his hands roughly groping down Lister's body seeking the sensitive  
areas in an awkward rush. After a moment he pulled back and a condescending  
smile quickly clamped down over what looked for a moment like fear and lust.

"Was that a surprise?" he asked.

"Yeah. Yeah that was a smeggin' surprise." Lister couldn't do anything for  
a moment but stare up at the taller man, but a slow smile spread across his  
chipmunk cheeks. "You bastard," he stated. As Rimmer started to move away,  
looking scared, Lister bounced himself off the wall and caromed into Rimmer,  
wrapping both arms around him tightly, and when he had a grip with one hand on  
the back of Rimmer's shirt, quickly sliding a hand to Rimmer's own crotch,  
where he returned the favor. "You been holding out on me. You like that, man?  
All your smeggin' talk about how straight you are -"

Rimmer gasped between ever rougher breaths. "No! I am straight! Just - no,  
don't stop!" he whimpered. He grabbed Lister's hand that had begun to move  
away and pushed it back to his crotch. "Feels good, somebody else's hand for  
a change."

"Yeah, me too." Lister buried his face in the joining of Rimmer's neck to his  
shoulder and bit. "Totally straight," he said, when his mouth was free again.  
"Never wanted to touch a bloke in me life. Revoltin', makes me ill." He placed  
another gentle nip higher up on Rimmer's neck, below his ear. "But what can you?  
Three million years from anything and only computer generated women to screw?  
Might as well shag a mate, right?"

"Right," Rimmer gasped out.

"You won't get me preggers, will you? I don't fancy going through that again."  
Lister grinned up at Rimmer.

"No picking out baby clothes."

"Right. We're both blokes, we can be sensible and just have a shag for the hell  
of it."

"Right. Sensible. Ah - " Rimmer's gasp trailed off into a short shrieky wail  
as he stiffened, clutching Lister hard against him.

Lister craned his neck back to get a look at Rimmer's face. White and completely  
immobile, he seemed to have forgotten to pretend to breath. He remained like  
that for a full thirty seconds before he let out a tiny sigh, loosened his grip,  
and his eyelids fluttered open. Lister gave him an evil grin. "Payback's gonna  
be a bitch, Rimsey."

Rimmer's smile had a satisfied gloat to it. "Don't think I'm done, Listey."

Some hours later, on a blue and green planet not far away, a young man listens  
with increasing awe to a randomly intercepted radio signal.

"This is an SOS distress beacon from the mining ship Red Dwarf. The crew killed  
by a radiation leak, there is only one survivor. His companions; a hologram of  
his dead bunkmate, a being evolved from the ship's cat, a mechanoid, and an  
artificial intelligence with an IQ of six thousand. Message ends. Additional:  
While inebriated, Lister and The Cat have engaged the Holly Hop drive, catapulting  
us into a strange, uncharted universe. Again."

It took a few moments for the implications of the wording used to sink in. Radar's  
eyes slowly grew as round as his glasses.

"A being evolved from the ship's cat" it had said. This had to be a joke. Yet  
something told him it wasn't. That same sense which had led him, in a moment of  
boredom, to idly spin the knobs of his shortwave radio to the little-used bands.  
He knew in his bones that it wasn't a joke, and in the next moment of thought he  
also knew he'd be called a nut if he mentioned it to anyone. And he wasn't  
bucking for a Section 8, like Klinger. "Only maybe I need one." He sat and  
stared at the radio for a minute before he picked up the microphone and keyed  
it to send out. He served in a medical unit, and it was a distress call. If  
it turned out to be some kind of joke he would rather err on the side of caution.

Holly's slightly cross-eyed blonde visage appeared on the screen in Lister and  
Rimmer's quarters, where they were sprawled in an untidy, stinking, snoring heap  
on the lower bunk. Hardlight holograms don't, strictly speaking, need to sleep  
or eat or drink or stink, but Rimmer allowed the computerized modeling to run  
most of the time, in order to give himself the illusion that he was a living  
person. Although Holly personally thought had been going a bit to the extreme  
to throw up all over the bathroom the night before, but at least he made it to  
the bathroom, and if it helped him psychologically to deal with his ongoing  
deadness than he could throw up as often as he wanted as far as she was concerned.  
It was only holographic vomit, easily cleaned up.

"Morning guys. Thought you might like to know we've got a response to our  
distress beacon."

Lister slowly peeled an eye open and groaned. "Mus've drunk more'n I thought  
I did last night. I just dream' you sai' we had a rspnse to our 'ngstress beacon."

"I did. We had a response to our distress beacon. From a mobile army surgical hospital."

Rimmer's eyes had opened, now. His spine stiffened and he tried to move  
casually away from Lister and pretend he'd never been draped over him,  
snuggling in his sleep.

Holly sighed. "Give it up, Arnold, you can't pretend you two weren't at it  
like mad weasels a few hours ago."

"Don't we have any privacy!?" he snapped at her, peevishly. "I mean - no we  
weren't!" He put a hand across his face and then looked up at Holly with a  
peculiar mix of sheepish and annoyance. "Can you not say anything to the  
others, please?"

"Say anything about what, Arnold?"

Lister's face soggily sought for an appropriate expression. "It's..." he paused,  
pulled his arm from under Rimmer and sat up on the edge of the bed. "No big  
deal, Holly. Sometimes a guy just needs a shag." He leaned over to pick a shirt  
out of the pile on the floor and sniff it.

"Yes. That's right," Rimmer said, a trifle desperately. "No big deal.  
Perfectly normal." He scrambled out of the bed and stood, stiffly. "Holly,  
get me a clean uniform." A clean uniform appeared on him, though his hair was  
still a mess. He wrinkled his nose at his own smell. "And a shower, please,  
Holly." He suddenly appeared to be soaked to the skin. "Eugh! Shower and  
then uniform, I mean!" His uniform disappeared and he was naked and wet.  
Behind him Lister grinned up at his bare buttocks, and aimed to snap them with  
one of the shirts he'd picked up, but just as he did so Rimmer turned and  
stalked off, growling, "I'll just use the shower."

"Well, when you're ready, come to the bridge and I can replay that message for  
everyone." Holly returned the screen to it's default fish tank pattern, leaving  
Dave sitting on the bottom bunk looking after Rimmer. He sniffed again at the  
shirt he had picked up - Rimmer's shirt - holding it to his face for a moment  
then dropping it. He went to the sink and sprayed deodorant in his armpits,  
brushed his teeth, grabbed another shirt at random, then climbed up to his bunk  
and lay back with his arm over his eyes.

When Rimmer emerged from the shower a short while later, neat and trim, he  
avoided Lister's eyes. His face was tight and closed. "Lister, I... I'd  
greatly appreciate it if you would not say anything to the others. Of course  
I have a certain image to maintain. People expect me to be-"

"A git, Rimmer, people expect you to be a complete and total git." Lister  
bounced down off his bunk as he said this. "Sure, I won't say anything. If  
you let me do it again."

Rimmer's body grew, if possible, even more stiff, though his expression was  
unreadably mixed. After a moment fear won out. "Are you blackmailing me?"

"Rimmer you smegging idiot. It's not going to matter if I say anything, they're  
going to know. There's only five people on this ship and three already know.

"But it's just this once, and if you don't say anything, and Holly said she  
wouldn't say anything - "

"She didn't say anything of the kind, didn't you listen to her? Seriously,  
Rimmer, don't tell me you're never going to want to do this again. I mean,  
I might."

Rimmer paused, staring at him as though he'd been hit with a brick. "You  
might ... what?"

Lister wavered physically, seeming about to step forward, searching Rimmer's  
face, but then he blinked and shrugged. "You were a good ride, okay? Look,  
just act like it's no big thing and they'll give up teasing you soon enough.  
They're going to tease me too, right? Don't worry about it. Perfectly normal,  
remember? Leave perfectly straight guys without any outlet for long enough,  
they've got to get a shag once in a while, even if it's just a mate."

"Right. Perfectly normal. Right." Rimmer collected himself, tucking fear and  
what might have been hope down under a tight lid. "Everything will be the same.  
We'll take the piss out of each other just like we always have. They won't  
notice. Fine." He turned on his heal and left.

Lister looked after him. "Smeg," he muttered quietly, "What the smeg have I  
done?"

At the bridge they met up with Kryten. They had to wait a bit for the Cat, who  
arrived finally moving rather stiffly but looking as though he hadn't slept.  
They had a rousing debate about the response message they'd gotten, Rimmer  
claiming it was possibly a trick by Simulants to lure them in, unsuspecting,  
and Cat insisting he couldn't smell anything dangerous here. Eventually they  
realized it was all a moot point, as Holly had already sent a message back asking  
the young man to send again and explaining that they had a time delay because of  
distance.

Radar had received Holly's return message quite by luck, just as he'd gotten  
the first one. In a momentary early morning lull in his work he'd had that  
niggling feeling again, and began to twiddle with the radio knobs, though this  
time he went right to the band he remembered.

"-not a joke," the woman's voice was saying. "We're quite lost and I think it  
would do my crew a world of good to see people again, even for a short while.  
Send again so I can get a triangulation on you and bring them in. You're in a  
medical unit - are you a doctor? Again, I apologize for the delay in responding,  
it's because we're so far away. Holly over."

"Oh jeez... Oh jeez!" he muttered. He keyed his mic. "Holly-ma'am, I only got  
part of the message, I didn't catch your title. Oh, ah, this is Corporal O'Reily  
of the Four Oh Seven Seventh Mash. No, I'm not a doctor, just a file clerk.  
But... if it took this long for you to get my message and send one back, you  
must be..." His eyes grew round again as he thought about that. He had talked  
with amateur ham radio operators in the States on nights when something was just  
right about the weather and had noticed the several seconds lag time it took for  
comments to go back and forth. Several seconds for a radio signal to go halfway  
around the world and back. Several hours meant... "...you must be a really long  
ways off!"

The next response came back much more quickly, as Red Dwarf had managed to cover  
a great deal of distance while the radio signals were bouncing back and forth.  
Within the next day Radar and Holly were able to speak to each other at almost  
a conversational speed, and suddenly they were within range to send down the  
Blue Midget. They each dressed in what they respectively considered to be their  
best in anticipation of meeting people. Although of course in Cat's case he  
tended to dress in his best every day no matter what the occasion, so his lavender  
suit with purple velvet piping and pale blue lace dripping from the cuffs was not  
much different from the pink one he'd worn the day before. Lister had put on a  
clean shirt under his leather jacket, Rimmer was in a trim and gleamingly white  
uniform with gold braid, and Kryten had polished himself.

Lister bounced ahead of the group as the crossed the hangar. "I'm driving!"

"We're all going to die," Rimmer chanted automatically.

Holly had the Midget locked in on the coordinates she'd extrapolated from  
Radar's signal, so there was very little skill needed for most of the trip  
down. However, that lulled Lister into a false sense of security, he really  
wasn't paying attention until Rimmer shrieked, "Look out for that helicopter!  
My god!"

As he desperately pulled the Midget up, rolling to port, Lister realized there  
were several other helicopters rising from the hill below. "I'm turning off  
the invisibility field!"

"They'll see us!" Rimmer yelled back at him.

"Yeah Rimmer, if they can see us they stand a chance of avoiding us. Or would  
you rather fall in a fiery wreck?"

The rest of the helicopters reacted admirably quickly, taking evasive maneuvers  
and continuing on their way toward the mountains.

Lister put the Midget down with a bump a little way from the hill the helicopters  
had taken off from. As they descended the gangway a crowd of people appeared at  
the crest of the hill, waving their arms. Cat waved back. "Friendly, aren't they?"

"They don't look friendly to me," said Rimmer.

"They seem to be yelling, sir," Kryten inserted. "Let me turn up my audio  
receptors." He doodled a knob on his neck and cocked his head intently. "Ah.  
They're saying 'mine field.'"

"They're cranky because we're in their field?" Lister looked around at the  
ground, scattered with rocks and weeds. "It doesn't look like there's any crops  
here. Selfish buggers." He stepped off the ramp and began to walk toward the  
hill, waving and smiling. Cat bounced off the end of the ramp, Rimmer took a  
few long strides and was soon by Lister's side, and Kryten shook his head and  
waddled on after.

For about thirty feet. Then the ground below his feet exploded. The others  
froze where they were as a leg flew through the air.

"Freeze!" Rimmer yelled.

"No shit!" Lister yelled back.

"We can't do that either?" Cat asked. "Too late."

"Where's Kryten?" Lister asked, "Smeg!"

"Over here, sir!" Kryten called. "I seem to have a malfunction with my arms."

"Hold still! It's not your arms, Krytes, your head's on backward."

"Ah, thank you sir." Kryten adjusted his head as Lister peered at the ground.

"Cat, what's wrong with your danger-sniffing nose? Why didn't you smell this?"

"Oh, I can smell if fine, now. It was your driving - caused my nose to overload."

Lister glared at him, but couldn't spare the energy for long. "Okay, right.  
Here's what we'll do. Rimmer and I will carry Kryten; Cat, you lead us out."

"Why not go back to the Midget and land someplace else?" Rimmer asked.

"Look where they are." Lister nodded in the direction of the crowd of people,  
who had descended to the base of the hill, but now stood spread in a ragged line.  
"They must know where the edge of the minefield is, and it's closer than the  
Midget. Cat's nose isn't a hundred percent - it will be safer to go forward  
than back."

Rimmer frowned, but couldn't find any argument to make, so they picked up Kryten  
between them and tried to sidle along in the Cat's footsteps as best they could.

Lister nodded his head toward the leg on the ground, which looked relatively  
undamaged. "We're going to need that. You'd better pick it up."

"Why me? Why not the Cat?"

Lister glared at him. "Because you're a smegging hologram and can't get blown up."

Rimmer glared back, then stalked off, nostrils flaring. Not looking back, he  
couldn't see the worry written on Lister's face, or the way he winced when an  
explosion made Rimmer flicker out for a moment, screaming. Luckily he  
reappeared, apparently solid and in none too good a mood, only a little further  
on, and he was soon returning to them with the leg.

They shortly reached the edge of the minefield and the crowd of people rushed  
toward them as they lowered Kryten to the ground. A blonde with an hourglass  
figure went directly to Rimmer and pulled up short in front of him. "That was  
the bravest thing I've ever seen!" she gushed. "I'm Major Margaret Houlihan,  
sir." She saluted quickly, then asked, "May I shake your hand?" glowing at him  
like a lighthouse.

Rimmer stood, transfixed, with a slight, dazed smile. He woke as she grabbed  
his hand and responded, "Of course, madam. Captain Arnold Rimmer at your  
service."

"Margaret!" a small, dark-haired man whined.

She wheeled on him and spat out, "Go away, Frank!" then spun her beaming  
searchlight back on Rimmer so quickly that the moment might not have happened.

For Rimmer it really hadn't. "Enchante'," he murmured, kissing her hand.

"Oh," said Margaret.


	2. Chapter 2

Kryten, stretched on the ground, was the center of a whirlwind of bodies who jostled Lister, Rimmer and The Cat out of the way in different directions. Two men leaned closely. After mere moments of inspection their eyes met above Kryten's form.

"This man doesn't need a doctor," said the auburn-haired one.

"Is there a mechanic in the house?" his dark-haired friend muttered, and began to raise his head as if to speak.

A young man with round glasses spoke quickly to a man in a dress. "Klinger, get everyone back."

"Stand back, give him air! We need space!" Amazingly the whole crowd swept back immediately - it might have had something to do with the large gun the man in the dress was carrying. They swept Rimmer and The Cat along with them.

"How bad is it, sirs?" Kryten asked weakly. "Don't spare me. I can take it."

The dark-haired man looked into Kryten's face, surprised in the act of twitching a sheet off the stretcher which had been set down beside them. He spread it over Kryten. "Best we keep you covered up, friend. You might worry some people. What's your name?"

"Kryten, sir. I'm a Series Three Thousand service mechanoid."

"Nice to meet you, Kryten. I'm Dr. Pierce, this is Dr. McIntyre," he nodded at Auburn Hair, "Welcome to the Four-Oh-Seven-Seventh mash. Best care anywhere. Tell me where it hurts, Kryten."

"I'm l-l-l-losing oil pressure, sir. Perhaps... I do hate to suggest it, sirt, but perhaps it would be best to turn me off for the moment, so the leaks can be found and fixed before my gears grind too much. Mister Lister knows how." His hound-dog eyes sought a view of Lister beyond McIntyre, who took the hint and twisted his head around to look up.

Lister, who had been somewhat distracted watching Rimmer speak with a blonde woman, snapped his attention back when the doctor looked up at him. "Are you sure you want me to do that, Kryters?" he asked, as he squatted down.

"Yes, sir. P-p-p-please."

Dave let out a breath. "Right." He slid a hand under Kryten, seeking the correct spot, and in a moment Kryten went stiff. "I hate doing that," he said, looking up Pierce. "It feels creepy."

"I'm not surprised," Pierce responded. He and McIntyre met eyes again. "The Swamp?" he asked.

McIntyre nodded, then turned to Lister, offering a handshake. "Hi. Seeing as you're going to be sharing our digs tonight, you can call me Trapper John. This here's Hawkeye," he added, giving a chin jerk in the direction of Dr. Pierce. "We're going to need to consult with you on your friend's condition."

"Dave Lister," he responded, squeezing McIntyre's hand. "Thanks."

"Let's get him on the litter and back. We'll carry him ourselves," Hawkeye responded to the medics who stepped forward to grab up the poles.

"I'll help you move him onto it," said Lister, "he's no lightweight." Between the three of them they managed, but it was obvious it would take another to move him any distance. Lister stood and scowled in the direction of where Rimmer was beaming and wiggling his fingers in farewell to the blonde, who smiled and waved back over her shoulder coquettishly.

"Ah," said Trapper, rising to stand beside him. "I see your friend has met our head nurse, Hot Lips Houlihan. Lucky guy - she seems to like him."

The blonde was now harranguing three younger women who had been talking with The Cat. Rimmer seemed completely unfazed by this behavior, standing dazed where she had left him - if anything he glowed even more as she chased them away.

"Poor Frank," Pierce muttered.

"Mm. That sad sack over there," McIntyre said, nodding at a pear-shaped middle-aged man who seemed to be trying to sink into the ground, "That's Frank, her boyfriend. Whenever she hasn't set eyes on someone more interesting."

"The guy's self-esteem is in the basement at the best of times," Dr. Pierce added, "and now we've got to kick him out of The Swamp, of all nights. It's not like he's a nice person, but nobody deserves to be treated like that."

"Sounds familiar." Lister nodded toward Rimmer. "My bunkmate, Arnold Rimmer, the Incredible Smeghead. Rimmer!" he called, "Shift yourself over here, we need help carrying Kryten!"

Rimmer scowled and approached them. "There seem to be plenty of other people around here who could help," he complained.

"TAKE a pole, Rimmer," Lister growled at him, grabbing one himself. "Cat! Cat! We're going!" They hefted Kryten between the four of them and set off up the hill, the rest of the crowd following like an entourage. The Cat was seperated from them, but moving in the same direction, as the nurses had already gone over the top of the hill. "Don't say anything stupid to anyone," Lister muttered in an undertone to Rimmer as they hiked.

"Why a complete gimboid like yourself seems to think it's necessary to remind me of something as basically... basic as that I cannot imagine. Lister, you have all the brain of a slug and none of the charm. Whereas _I_ have been getting along swimmingly with the natives. What an amazing woman! She's a Major, you know, in charge of all the nurses in this unit."

"Whatever. Just don't say anything stupid." He didn't have breath to say much more as the pace set by the doctors was brisk, particularly where they were heading up hill. The skirted man with the gun flanked on Rimmer's side, keeping up easily even though he was wearing high heels.

"You don't have to worry about me, sir," offered the round-faced young man, who was trotting along on Lister's side and apparently had quite good hearing. "I'm Corporal O'Reilly. I spoke on the radio with Holly? Um, I hoped I'd get to meet her."

Lister was not really up to carrying on a conversation at all at this point, but he gasped out, "pleasetameetcha. Holly - wait. When we stop."

Cresting the hill they saw the camp spread out below, a cluster of structures that were half tent and all flimsy, some quite large. They didn't stop to admire it, though, plunging immediately down the hill and snaking between the tents at the same brisk pace. Their entourage dissipated in all directions almost immediately, including The Cat, who called something about ladies. O'Reilly held open a tent door with a rough-painted sign near it reading, "The Swamp." Inside there was barely room enough to set down the litter, between three cots, a small woodstove and a very odd contraption which appeared to be made mostly of glass. Lister didn't wait to be invited, but plunked himself on one of the cots breathing hard.

"You don't look so good," McIntyre observed. "Are you going to be okay? No pain in your chest, throat or left arm, is there?"

Lister shook his head.

"Care for a martini?" Hawkeye offered.

Lister nodded.

Pierce waved the pitcher at Rimmer, who accepted, and at O'Rielly, who said, "Oh, no, thanks," with a blush and slight smile that said he was flattered to be included. Hawkeye made a little ritual of pouring four drinks into martini glasses, and offered them out with a flourish.

"Cheers," he offered, and took a large sip. Trapper John followed suit, with every evidence of enjoyment.

Rimmer sipped from his glass and promptly sprayed the tent with the liquid.

Lister had swallowed his first mouthful, and rather a large one, before he actually tasted it. He let out a strangled noise, something like "Waagh!" and observed his glass with a new respect. "What is this stuff?"

"I think it's taken the hairs off the inside of my nose!" wailed Rimmer.

Lister sculled the rest and burped. “Smegging great!”

Hawkeye and Trapper looked at each other.

"Nobody EVER likes it first time," said McIntyre, obviously impressed.

"We were once threatened with a court-martial by a Major who was unprepared for the particular piquancy of this vintage." Pierce added, "We make it ourselves," waving at the glass contraption on the table.

"Purely for medicinal purposes," said McIntyre, to which Pierce nodded solemnly.

Lister gazed at the still, enraptured. "It's a work of art."

"And he should know," muttered Rimmer, as though he'd heard it all before too many times to count, "he attended art school for all of ninety-six minutes. This varnish remover could only be useful for getting a person pissed as quickly as possible. Which I have no desire to do, as I have an assignation at eighteen hundred hours with a very lovely woman."

"Rimmer, why don't you get lost - go find your bird!" Lister snapped.

Rimmer's mouth went to a sharp line. He tipped his glass back and finished the drink in one long swallow, with an evident struggle, and handed the glass back to Pierce. "Thank you for your hospitality, sir. Could you direct me to the Officer's Club?"

Hawkeye waved vaguely. "Just turn right and then left and look to your left. You can't miss it."

As soon as Rimmer had given him one last furious look and shut the door with exagerated care behind him, Lister scowled and held out his glass for a refill. "Getting pissed sounds fine to me."

Hawkeye refilled his glass, giving him a searching look. "Some people work best with a little edge on. What do you need for tools? Radar will find them."

Lister looked at Kryten's frozen form morosely. "All I can do is to cap off these tubes and wires, and replace all the coolant and hydraulic fluid he lost. Then, if we can ever get back to the ship, he's probably got a spare leg. He's got spare everything."

Trapper started to turn to Radar, "Maybe you could - "

"I'll go find Sargeant Zale." O'Reilly finished for him, and scuttled out the door.

McIntyre responded to Pierce's raised eyebrows, "We'll drape him."

Simply draped Kryten's body still looked like a body, but by adding other objects under the sheet they managed to obscure his shape somewhat. By the time O'Reilly returned with the motor-pool mechanic they all agreed it was completely impossible to make out a humanoid form there.

Zale eyed the lumpy sheet, examining the sheered off wires and leaking tubes. "Whatta ya got here, doc? Frankenstein's monster?" At their shocked gapes he grinned around his cigar. "Hell I got ears ain't I? It's all over the camp that something wasn't right about that guy who got his leg blown off."

"Listen," said Lister, "He's my friend, and it doesn't matter how he's made, he's as human as anybody."

"Whatter I care?" Zale responded, "The more people I meet the more I like my jeeps. Maybe a mechanical guy'd be an improvement." He sniffed at the different liquids and rubbed them between his fingertips. "Yeah... the stuff I've got'll probly work. How much coolant you need?"

Lister lifted the edge of the sheet and pulled out a tiny dipstick. "He's about dry. Probly a quart."

Zale had brought a couple of cans of each, as well as a roll of black cloth tape which Lister looked at dubiously.

"Y'know, doncha, that cloth burns? And that electrical wires can get hot?"

"Ya got anything better?" Zale growled.

"Well... most of Kryten's wires don't actually carry that much amperage. It'll probly do for a short while."

It was an hour's work minute work for the two of them, and at the end of it Zale grinned with nearly as much delight as Lister to see Kryten sit up and say "Tha-tha-tha-thank you!" some minor glitches making his head jerk spasmodically. Hands were shaken and backs slapped all around, and Kryten was presented with a pair of crutches.

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"Where did The Cat disappear to?"

"Your friend in the zoot suit?" Trapper John asked. "I saw him following the nurses. Man after my own heart."

"I just want to make it perfectly clear that I'm in no way responsible or connected with anything The Cat choses to do," Rimmer stated.

"Oh the nurses can take care of themselves," Hawkeye responded. "They've been successfully defending themselves against Trap and myself, I doubt your friend poses them any trouble. We call him Trapper John because he once trapped a woman in the john on the Boston-Maine train - or at least so she claimed."

"Perfectly mutual situation, honestly!" Trapper interjected, holding up his hands in defense. "She had to say that to avoid getting in trouble."

"So?" Pierce continued, "Why do you call him The Cat?"

"Because he's a cat," said Lister.

"Oh," Rimmer scoffed, "'don't say anything foolish' he says. Nice, Lister, very good."

"Rimmer, leave it. To anyone ELSE, I meant. They've already seen Kryten."

"Because," Radar supplied, "He's descended from housecats. Right? I mean, Holly told me some."

"Right. He's actually a tom cat. Are you SURE you don't want to warn your nurses?" Lister asked the two doctors, who fidgeted uncomfortably for a moment. Just as Hawkeye began to open his mouth there came a splash as of a bucket of water being emptied, closely followed by a eery yowling.

"Well, we could issue them squirt guns," McIntyre offered, with a bright smile.


End file.
